“’Before maybe the end of this decade, I see wind and solar being cost-competitive without subsidy with new fossil fuel,’ Chu told an event at the Pew Charitable Trusts.” (below)
Energy history matters. In the marketplace, what energies performed and at what cost; in energy policy, who said what and when. In this regard, intermittent, dilute energies have a bad history.
Obama’s DOE Secretary Steven Chu has a ten-year anniversary of a statement that is now falsified. As reported by the American Security Project in “Wind, Solar Becoming Cost Competitive: Chu,”
Clean sources of energy such as wind and solar will be no more expensive than oil and gas projects by the end of the decade, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu said Wednesday.
President Barack Obama’s administration has been encouraging companies to invest in green growth, calling it a new source of jobs and fearing that other nations — led by China — are stealing the march.
“Before maybe the end of this decade, I see wind and solar being cost-competitive without subsidy with new fossil fuel,” Chu told an event at the Pew Charitable Trusts.
“So the country and the companies who develop those renewable energy and resources that become cost competitive without subsidy all of a sudden have a world market. And, boy, we can’t lose that world market,” he said.
The US Congress has rejected attempts to mandate curbs on carbon emissions blamed for climate change, with many members of the Republican Party arguing that reducing dependence on fossil fuels would be too expensive.
But the Obama administration has been hoping to seek bipartisan cooperation on what it hopes are less controversial efforts such as encouraging renewable energy….
Wind energy, never competitive with fossil fuels, remains uncompetitive as demonstrated by the desperate attempt by the Biden Administration in BBB (Build Back Better) to extend the Production Tax Credit for a 14th time. Yes, what began in 1992 for wind’s PTC was extended in 1999… 2002 … 2004 … 2005 … 2006 … 2008 … 2009 … 2012 … 2014 … 2015 … 2016 … 2019 … 2021.
It’s time to pull the plug and let the market decide between energies. The government–the taxpayers–should be neutral.
In order to be competitive the cost and the value of wind/solar must both be comparable to the cost and value of fossil and nuke. While the cost has dropped and is near parity, the value remains way out of whack.
Wind and solar are “source of opportunity” generators. No wind, no sunshine, no electricity.
In a fossil-free energy market, wind and solar must be dispatchable. That requires daily, monthly and seasonal storage which is not currently commercially available.
According to US EIA Electric Power Monthy, a 2.5 MW wind turbine could be relied upon to generate 0.6 MW throughout the year, though not every hour of every day without storage.
According to US EIA Electric Power Monthly, a 2.5 MW solar array could be relied upon to generate 0.15 MW throughout the year, though obviously not every hour of every day without storage.
More electricity would be generated on most days and long-term, low-loss storage could increase reliable generation to 0.75 and 0.5 MW respectively, though that added value would come at a very high cost.
NPR incompetence and bias was never more obvious than its blatant refusal to report the complete and total failure of European solar and wind electricity generation.
European natural gas and electricity prices have skyrocketed and are now 8-10× those in the U.S.
The NPR report: crickets.